The Municipal Art Society is under fire from critics in the preservationist community who are upset they’re awarding their Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal to Bruce Ratner, chairman of Forest City Ratner, and company President and CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin, developers of Barclays Center and Atlantic Yards.

The preservationists claim the project has demolished several historic Brooklyn buildings.

At an MAS patrons panel at architect Santiago Calatrava’s studio last week, “What Jackie Taught Us” author Tina Flaherty defended the choice to honor the developers, saying, “Jackie Kennedy was not against progress.

She believed in beauty and wanted us to protect it where it exists, and where it doesn’t exist she wanted developers of taste to create it.”